Sunday, January 31, 2016

You can decide who's to blame after you read the whole thing. First, I have bronchitis / borderline pneumonia. So there's that. On Saturday, Andrew bundled the girls up to take them into town to run some errands and give me a chance to rest. There was a bit of confusion about Greta's shoes; before they even left the driveway, Andrew returned to the house to swap her sneakers for her snow boots so she could stomp around in the snow as they walked. All fine.

One of their errands was to the grocery store in town, to pick up a jar of pepperoncinis. Andrew called to tell me there were none available, and these were a key ingredient to the Mississippi Roast already simmering away in the slow cooker--I'd have to drive to the larger grocery store and get them. So much for resting. So I bundled myself up, hacking, and got in the car and drove to the grocery store for the peppers. On my way home, I met Andrew and the girls at the library book sale so I could pick up their bag of books (and the girls, too) while Andrew finished up the errands. We all reconvened at home. Fine. The girls were enraptured with their selection of unreadable Barbie books. The roast was delicious.

Today, in the morning, it was time for Andrew to get the girls ready to go ice skating. We couldn't find Greta's sneakers anywhere. I reminded Andrew that he'd changed her shoes before the errands yesterday. Then he remembered: when he changed her out of her sneakers, he put the sneakers on top of the car. Which I then drove to the grocery store. The shoes were nowhere to be found.

This wouldn't be a huge, huge deal except these were $65 Tsukihoshi sneakers I'd taken both girls to a local shoe store to buy, one of a million tasks squeezed in on a hectic end-of-summer day before school started. I don't buy a ton of shoes for them, and for something like sneakers--worn nearly every day to school, for scooter riding, etc.--I try to buy something quality, and this was a brand I've been buying since they were walking. I even bought them a half-size up to last all fall and summer.

AND THEY WERE LEFT ON TOP OF THE CAR AND WERE NOW GONE.

Later, after ice skating (Lucia had a great lesson, and Greta skated without even holding Andrew's hand during the free skate afterwards), Andrew went for a run / search. He ran my entire route to the grocery store. And, lo and behold, there on a busy main road in front of the high school was one of Greta's sneakers, on a snowbank. And, lo and behold, when he ran home and turned onto our very own street, there was Greta's other sneaker, in front of a house near the end of the block, on a snowbank. We couldn't believe it.

Andrew says I'm to blame, for driving off with shoes on top of the car. But I believe the blame is clearly his, because who leaves shoes on top of the car? And who automatically scans the top of one's car for wayward objects before driving off? Especially if you have, say, borderline pneumonia and aren't entirely with it anyway?

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Here's a scene that no one without a kid (or two) can even fathom as a reality. But it was my reality, tonight. Child-free people, enjoy.

Scene: Bedtime. (Of course: the worst time of day.)

Situation: Lucia's hair is a solid nest of dried syrup from lunchtime. She has no idea how the syrup got in her hair; when she got off the bus, her hair looked sculptural.

Challenge: I have pneumonia. Andrew's in California.

Action: Since I'm in no shape to give both kids a bath, I turn on the shower for Lucia. Greta doesn't have school tomorrow; her hair is a nest too, but no one will have to witness it.

Chaos ensues: In the split second that I reach down (hacking out a lung) to grab a washcloth for Lucia, she steps into the shower and slips, falling and somehow getting a nasty cut on her thigh. She's hysterical, Greta's naked and causing trouble somewhere else, I can barely stand upright, and there's no way of remedying Lucia's hair problem without forcing her to stand up at the sink, exacerbating the pain of her bleeding cut.

Result: The syrup-hair remains. I gave Lucia some Tylenol and a band-aid. Greta still has blue nailpolish on her eyelid, but she'll survive. I curse everything about this day. Tomorrow morning, I'll have to deal with Lucia's hair. This won't be easy, since mornings as a solo parent are already stressful, made worse by my near inability to function with my hideous, hideous cough. I'm already dreading it.

This blog began in 2006, when I quit my job and sold all my furniture to move to Barcelona with Andrew, skipping town blissfully and dramatically; then we skipped town again, to California, and then, finally, back to Brooklyn. Now I'm in a rambling old house in the suburbs, with two babies and a husband and the suspicion that we won’t be skipping town again anytime soon—at least not the kind of skipping town that involves packing boxes and moving trucks.